


Images on Jericho's Walls

by jer832, scifiangel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Slow Romance, Tardis movie night, The Doctor’s undershirt, ”It Happened One Night”
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-12 06:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11731482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jer832/pseuds/jer832, https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifiangel/pseuds/scifiangel
Summary: "What looks better on a man?"  She nods at the Doctor's reflection in the mirror, standing in his t-shirt and denims. "This?"  She yanks off the t-shirt.  "Orthis."





	Images on Jericho's Walls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloose09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloose09/gifts).



> _HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOOSE ~ from scifi and jer ___  
> 

 

It's movie night and her turn to choose. When she suggests a marathon of old black & white romantic comedies, the Doctor gets that thoroughly confused look that makes him so friggin' kissable and asks her why she would want to watch such an obsolete sort of thing when she's always going on about wanting to see some Spock from him, and here he's got a complete movie library and best 3D sensory-enhanced holographic system in the universe.  
  
So she sits him down in front of his telly, starts a video of  _"It Happened One Night"_ , and drops on the sofa next to him. Cuddling into his side shuts down the oncoming storm of " _I've already seen this one, Rose; why don't **I** just find us another..."_  whinging. He wraps his arm around her shoulder, and by the time Claudette Colbert is asleep on Clark Gable's shoulder the Doctor is totally invested in a good snuggle with her.  
  
He enjoys all the snark and sparks, and grunts approvingly at the way Gable shuts down the slimeball on the bus. But she catches him giving her a thoughtful look right after. "I can look out for myself, thanks anyway," she chuckles. He opens his mouth to disagree. "Pay attention to the movie," she says, "there may be a quiz." She feeds him popcorn to keep him quiet, though when he licks the butter off her fingers she's the one she has to tell not to make any sound.  
  
She watches him subtly. The expert lighting helped give the black and white film its cinematic brilliance, but his smile at the start of the walls of Jericho scene lights the movie for her in a way no cinematographer, however gifted, ever could. When it comes to the part where Gable strips off his shirt and stands bare-chested between Colbert and the blanket that he's hung down the middle of the room, she pauses the movie and breaks the screening room silence with a bit of movie trivia she got from her Gran.

"You know, Doctor, this little scene single-handedly brought down my planet's undershirt industry."  
  
''You're takin' the piss, Rose Tyler."  
  
She's not, she says, and what's more she'll show him why. She drags him to the mirror at the end of the room, tells him to look at himself, and pulls off his jacket and jumper so fast he doesn't realize what she's doing until it's done. She orders him to keep looking at his reflection.  
  
"What looks better on a man? This-- " She nods at the image of the Doctor in his t-shirt and denims. "Or  _this--_ " She yanks off the t-shirt.

   


   
She watches him in the mirror, an eyebrow cocked, waiting for an answer.

He fidgets. "Jack wears a t-shirt."  
  
"That's a whole different issue. Jack wears it in a way to make a person want to take it off him themself, usually slowly and maybe get their teeth involved."  
  
"Do you ever want to?"  
  
"There's been a time or two," she says honestly.  
  
The Doctor had been subtly checking himself out in the mirror--she's been watching it with no little bit of female mirth -- but at that his eyes dart over to give the Rose Tyler standing in their joint reflection a quick look before he pivots to face the flesh and bone Rose Tyler standing at his side watching him. 

"I don't have the musculature Jack has," he acknowledges flatly as he gets his t-shirt out of her hands, slips it on, and pivots out of her open gaze.  
  
"There's a hotness trade-off."   
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Jack doesn't have your long lithe torso."  
  
He frowns at the images reflected on the mirror; he doesn't even pretend otherwise, though he could claim he's checking out the wacked-out face of the grandfather clock reflected behind them. After a few seconds he stops frowning at the _looking glass_  Rose and frowns down at  _her_. She meets his look. She's decided that like the Ellie character in the movie, she'll go for broke.  

"It comes down to personal preference, Doctor. For us humans it's an  _eye of the beholder_  thing."

His eyes shift quickly-- to the mirror, to her, back to the mirror.  So quickly she almost misses it. Then he stands tall and openly studies himself in the mirror. 

"Anything else?"

"There's that fantastic arse you usually keep hidden under your jacket."

He turns a bit and looks at his image with a hum of curiosity. He might be the only bloke in the universe who can check himself out and make it seem as if he's examining an alien life form he's just encountered.

"Rose Tyler, are you telling me that if I hang a blanket between the time rotor and the captain's chair, take off my jacket, jumper, and t-shirt, and sling insults and snark around the console room, that's all it would take, and you humans would immediately fall under my comedy-adventure  _hotness_  spell and beg me to take you with me?"

"You could throw a killer mannequin or two into the reel, but that's purely optional."

The Doctor's eyes scour the reflection of the face she's turned back to the mirror, and she gets the feeling he's searching for a punchline that he thinks he must have missed. She wonders that he thinks he'll find more truth in a looking-glass image than in a concrete Rose; still, she holds on to her expression, lets him search, and waits.

He comes up behind her. She feels his cool palm on her shoulder and puts her hand over his. His fingers thread through hers. "Anything else?" he asks. 

"Your eyes smolder, and when they ignite it starts a fire that steals all the oxygen and boils my blood until I'm ready to explode. They consume me, and I don't want it to stop, ever."

His eyes wrap her in starlight and questions. Her eyes touch him languidly, answers hanging on the silvered surface of the glass and the charged atmosphere of the room. He raises their clasped hands to his lips. It takes only a slight twist for her lips to reach him. She breathes muted kisses over his breast.  He sheds his t-shirt and eases off her top. 

Their reflections watch.

 

 

 

 

~~~~~

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The manip is by scifiangel; Please snag only with her permission. 
> 
> Please do not repost story or manip.
> 
> Film reference is to _"It Happened One Night"_ , (1934); directed by George Cukor; starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert; edited by Gene Havlick; based on the short story _"Night Bus"_ by Samuel Hopkins Adams.  
> 


End file.
